Thursday, July 24, 2008

With a strong likelihood of an LTTE counter-offensive in the horizon, the Sri Lanka Army recently upgraded its electronic warfare capabilities with the latest Electronic Weapons Locating Radar systems available in the market.

This crucial upgrade is an important one considering that the casualties during the most recent LTTE attacks were caused by trajectory weapons, i.e. Howitzers, Mortar Bombs and Multiple-Rocket Launchers.

The Army has taken steps to establish special units in Jaffna and at other crucial locations in the Vanni equipped with these systems procured from a friendly Asian country. The radar system, developed and maintained by that country is said to be equal in its abilities to the AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder Radar systems developed by the United States (Raytheon), but less expensive.

The Indian government, in May 2008, procured 12 AN/TPQ-37 Radars denied to them for many years by the United States. Other than Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan are the only other countries to test the weapon in real combat in the recent past.

After open hostilities and border wars ended between India and Pakistan, the Sri Lanka Army and the guerrillas are the only two adversaries continuously engaged in a continuous war that uses trajectory weapons.

69 comments:

We have Jets which can reach Mulaitivu in 15 Minutes (Max) & we also have UAVs .But Are we using them to at their Optimum Ability?For example in the Recent Navy Battle.If UAV was UP there after the battle started (NAVY have to inform the AIR FORCE about the battle ofcoz), The Big ltte Ships (30~ 50 feet Miraj type..) could have been TRACKED back atleast till it comes near land & BOOM !!

I think the Navy & Air Force Cordination is a MUST to make these a Reality...Isnt that so?

If we are to use UAV to see the Miraj ships in a Jetty, We are doing a BIG Mistake.Those Trailers they use to drag them ashore for safe keeping along with Natural hideouts will make them Invisible from Air.

But If We could Track them in a fight just like I said earlier. What stops us from doing so?I cant see how we going to Loose sight as Only 15 Minutes Needed for the Jets to come & make them History.Have I missed Something?Or Am I Asking for more?:(I dont think so...Any thoughts?

like "su" I asked the same question from DN long time ago but still no answer. This was a realy big question in my mind that why dont our forces buy this one. I even sent an e-mail to an Australian company asking weather they sell a similar product to other countries, just for my info, but they never replied either.

I was thinking if SLA had these they could wipe out the LTTE terrorist heavy guns. and incidents such as Muhamalai could have had a different outcome.

This realy is good news, thanks DW for the news.I also agree with "su" on the AF Navy coordination matter.Its a rearity that we catch a fleet of boats. non of them should be allowed to come ashore.

15 minutes is the time it takes to fly from Katunayake to target, but a jet cannot take off that soon. Its not like starting a car and driving into the sunset. Once a fight starts, then the parties fighting can see each other. You don't need UAVs at that point. UAVs are there for early detection.

SLA has an air force officer permanently stationed in its operations room. SLAF, as far as I am aware does not have an operations room functioning 24/7.

A poem, based on an eye-witness account of an event during 1983 pogrom captures the determination of a Tamil father at the time of his agonising death. The poem by Basil Fernando, a Sinhala lawyer, encapsulates the impelling spirit of the Tamil struggle of the post-pogrom years. Mr. Basil Fernando is at present the Executive Director of the Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission.

The poem is reproduced here with courtesies to the author:

Yet Another Incident in July 1983

Burying the deadbeing an art well developed in our times(our psycho-analysts have helped us muchto keep balanced minds--whateverthat may mean--) there is no reason reallyfor this matter to remain so vividas if some rare occurrence. I assure youI am not sentimental, never havinghad a 'break down' as they say.I am as shy of my emotionsas you are. And I attend to my dailytasks in a very matter of fact way.

Being prudent too, when a government says "Forget"I act accordingly. My ability to forgethas never been doubted, neverhaving had any adverse comments.

On that score either. Yet I remember the way they stopped that car,

the mob. There were fourin that car, a girl, a boy(between four and five it seemed) and theirparents--I guessed--the man and the woman.It was in the same way they stopped other cars.I did not notice any marked

Difference. A few questionsin gay mood, not to make a mistakeI suppose, then they proceeded toaction, by then routine. Pouringpetrol and all that stuff.Then someone noticed something oddas it were, opened the two left sidedoors, took away the two children, crying andresisting as they were moved away from their parents.

Children's emotions have sometimesto be ignored for their own good, the guy must havethought. Someone practicalwas quick, lighting a matchefficiently. An instantfire followed, adding one moreto many around. Aroundthe fire they chatteredof some new adventure. A few

scattered. What the two insidefelt or thought was no matter.Peace loving people were hurryingtowards homes as in a procession ....Then suddenly the man insidebreaking open the door, wasout, his shirt already onfire and hair too. Then bending,took his two children. Not evenlooking around as if executing a calculateddecision, he resolutelyre-entered the car.Once inside, he closed the doorhimself . . . I heard the noisedistinctly.

Still the ruined caris there, by the road-sidewith other such things. Maybethe Municipality will remove itone of these days to the Capital'sgarbage pit. The cleanliness of the Capitalreceives Authority's top priority.

The poem was initially published in New Ceylon Writing, Vol. 5

The poem mainly features in an article " The Agony and the Ecstasy of a Pogrom, Southern Lanka, July 1983" by Michael Roberts, a Sri Lankan sociologist in Australia. The article and the poem were translated into Tamil by R. Cheran, in the July 2008 issue of Kaalachchuvadu, a magazine published from Tamil Nadu, India.

DW,I think you Misunderstood me...:(well I think few pilots has to be placed ON site to make a quick flight.Then again with the ltte planes also a threat.So I think atleast ships should be able to get ready atleast in 30minutes.So combined time of 45 Minutes!!(I really think even this is too much..)Im not saying attacking when a Sea battle is ongoing.At that time Mirajs in Sea can do Manures in sea (Even then target seeking Missiles can be used though..).But we can track the BIG SHIPS using UAVs & Locate them when they are near to land.(Surely they are hiding them in hideouts or get them to trailers & shift them as B#1 has said..) So Then Get the Attack !!!I Really think it is More effective.I mean even a Sea fight lasts more than 30minutes & UAVs should be available to be aired & be in place in that time frame,to give the details to the jet pilots?Isnt that so...May be not Every time but atleast once in a Month We will have the Chance at Daytime when AF cordinator at work...So From where am I expecting More...Navy, Air Force?:(

The UAV's in operation today are for ground aerial surveillance. To make them quiet, the engines are made small. This makes them pretty slow and vulnerable to heavy gusts of winds. Tigers don't have big ships. The largest boat they have for attack purposes is the Muraj. These are often launched swiftly from hideouts, changing the launching point, route to the points, locations etc regularly. We don't have that many UAVs to keep looking down at all possible locations. Operating deep over a sea area is difficult for these UAVs, unless its a predator. The only thing that could do this was the beech super king.

just want your views on an a few ideas I had on the navy in the future, specially since we are a vital maritime link and the Indian Navy expanding her surface fleet and amphibious warfare capability and Naval air capability not to mention china’s desire to move in to the Indian ocean. And our new found/to be found oil in the mannar basin will attract some unwanted attention to us.

On account of the rapidly unfolding situation, we could see major confrontation come to a close towards the first or second quarter on the next year depending on the current thrust (my estimates. I could be well wrong) and we could probably see guerrilla /urban terrorist and classic tiger terror and espionage operation for some time to come.

But as an island state, we have to gain a strong naval capability, while reviewing our littoral warfare capability and tactics (ensurering that the next generations of sailors don’t forget the painful lessons learned by the navy in FAC/ small boat operations and costal dominance) we should collectively move to build a base line class of OPV's , which has room for future upgrades or war time refit. Plus a fast auxiliary ship for RAS/supply/ ro-ro type work.

I would think at least 4-6 of them(OPVs); 80m+ in length, 1800~2000dtw and twin screws, with a top speed of around 26~29kt, but a range of around 2200 Kt miles at 15kt, with a endurance of around 18~22 days, with a heli-deck/hanger for a.. lets say 6~8 ton heli, and full spectrum armament and C4I package), A small fleet air arm would also be useful, if cost is a problem, we could ask uncle sam for Sea Eagle UAVs (around $100k a package) which could be launched from ships/boats and recovered by the ships them selves.

We should try to acquire or build a small fleet of costal/sea Minesweepers or MCV because protecting our harbors and the shipping lanes is vital for SL.

And upgrade our FACs and start a river operations unit (so that we can take advantage of all our lagoons and inter connecting water ways)

I think underwater warfare will have to wait till the economy really pics up some time later. But we can start with a sub school, and a submersible or two. But a strong ASW capacity in a must! This is where the Fleet air arm would play a vital part.

In support of the Navy, the AF could get a few dedicated long range MPA, with ASW capability. A good coastal maritime surveillance radar system would be a vital part of SL’s defense in the future.

DWThanks. So SLA station these whepons in some predetermined locations. When LTTE fire more that 8 motar/ arti these will identify their locations within 5 seconds and automaticaly fire at enimy guns. (I guess these whepons have some range in meters/km between their locatin and the place where enimy motar/ arti falls, to work.)

For UAV question, then the answer to why SLAF can't destroy all sea tiger boats even after seeing them is they are unable to hit right on the boat (as it moves). And at some point they disapear or SLAF don't/can't trace them when they close to shore.

I have seen this kind of vehicle year 2003/2004 in an exhibition (actually I went inside to this vehicle too). This looks exactly same (may be I am mistaken technical advancement of the equipment). I thought army was using it for a quite a long time.

Also I heard ppl in SL universities were working on software used in this kind of equipments. I think Sri Lankan universities need to participate more and more research on this kind of activities. Finally we can sell those skills like Israel are currently doing.

What gives abt. the Friendly asian Country fellas ? Who ? But, it's a smart moves cuz, dont forget the Ltte Mortar rain during Rivirasa. What's the situ with the Mig 29 purchase ? Is it still neccesary ?

But, a tigers cornered is a bad hombre ! I'm glad SLAF keeps pounding these ltte bases and gathering finally. SLA cant let these morons have free reign at all ! Gotta keep them looking over their shoulder.... of course looking up baby ! Nice work DW ~

as LTTE control area skrinks, and as more and more people are forced into this shrinking area by the LTTE, SLA needs precision attack capability.

LTTE will be hiding their heavy guns in areas of high civilian concentration for own protection (human shields). SLA cannot go about launching MBRLs on these areas. these radar systems and synchronised neutralisation attacks will do the surgical elimination reducing civilian casualties to a minimum possible.

This will come in handy over in the Jaffna Peninsula if and when they decide to push forward. Enemy artillery/mortar pod locations can be fed into missile systems realtime on aircraft loitering over the battle field.

Fall of Malawi and Tunukkai will leave Mankulam vulnerable. LTTE will be forced to withdraw. Mankulam is an important junction linking north to west and the east. During Jayasikuriu LTTE did not want to give it up easily for obvious reasons.

3 LTTE boats were destroyed, many damaged when the Sri Lanka Naval elite Fast Attack Craft (FACs) engaged an LTTE boat movement at Chilawattai in the seas 2Nm South of Mullaittivu, today (July 24) at around 6.30 p.m.

According to the Naval Spokesperson Commander D.K.P Dassanayake, 10 LTTE speedboats were making-way along the Mullaittivu coast and the sea battle erupted when the LTTE boat cluster was detected by the naval FACs on patrol. Rest of the LTTE boats beached and the terrorists have fled into a jungle patch seeking shelter from the seaborne naval assault, he said.

No damages were caused to the naval craft, Spokesperson Commander Dassanayake further said."

the way to go. destroying LTTE men & capabilities is the surest way to extinct it. while tigers will go extinct, they will become toothless pretty soon at this rate.

HOWEVER, once again the success rate was only 30%. the other 7 boats escaped to SL to fight another day!!! we have to up the success rate little by little.

avoiding own damages is imperative!

well done SLN. SLN is on the aggro gear again. with the shrinking of the eastern coastline, the significance of the western coastline increases for the tigers.

i noticed that the report avoids mentioning the direction STs were travelling. the direction is highly significant. based on recent similar attacks and the location, i guess these boats were moving southwards towards TRINCO at 6:30 PM; would have reached trinco after 7:30 PM; galle the next day early morning!!!!

just want your views on an a few ideas I had on the navy in the future."-----------------------------------

Your idea about the OPVs sounds excellent, already MR and GR have made efforts to make sure Lanka manufactures some warships(real size ships) on her own in the future.

We are currently in talks with Croatia about building six "large patrol vessels". Dunno if these will turn out to be real OPVs or not.

I understand that we as an island nation needs a good navy, but make no mistake we can't compete with our largers neighbours when it comes to "pumping money into navies".

I say we should focus on building fast missile boats(about 30m long) in the future, and tons of them. This is a very cost effective solution for a small budgeted country like ours. The missiles could be brought from China or another friendly country, and the boats could be be build by us. It is the ultimate nightmare of big ship navies.

These days when purchasing equipment, one of the things we should look for is interoperability. Systems must be able to communicate with each other with minimal human intervention. The advantages are many. Field commanders will get instance response, avoid human errors inputing data, less cost and so on. In a nutshell, system interoperability is crucial because it can save lives. A large part of military exercisers conducted by US and its allies focus on interoperability between each others defense systems.

I am not sure if this radar and the missile systems on the Migs/Kfirs can communicate with each other. If it does, it will defenetly help everyone.

3-D radars deployed in Jaffna are of Chinese origin and are supported by Chinese technicians present at the installations. This is making the Indians jittery since they feel the Chinese are spying on their technology operating in that close space. The Chinese are known to steal other people's intellectual property with no considerations so those concerns are quite legit.

Anyhow, we are yet to hear of even one single success story about a counter-attack against LTTE guns, using these advanced fire-finder systems Even the US systems have not been successful so far in SL.

oh c'mon Bhairav... any idiot can figure out that ltte have no choice but to launch a major counter attack very soon cos SLDF is marching ahead much faster than anybody ever though they will...since ltte shot themselves in their bata slippers by their unilateral "ceasefire" they will have to stick to that till the summit is over :)In the mean time SLDF has increased their ops and with sea routes getting cut off, almost daily multiple air raids, extremely effective deep battle space units and ground forces in high morale...ltte have very little choice but to fight for their survival... do or die situ :)good to see this time around sldf not taking any chances are are not under or over estimating the enemy...they no the problem and they seem to have a good cure for it :)

SLDF is outsmarting LTTE in its own game. When They were expecting our troops to advance thru tunukkai they have bypassed it and now in a strategically inportant place close to mallavi and and not so far from mankulam

What a move!!! Now the LTTE has to watch all three places on the same time since they wouldn't know which place will fall first

In addition to that capturing a few pices of arti and shells, truly wow indeed, This is the first time it happened in Vanni liberation, Is it the direct result of Army acquiring firefinder as mentioned by DW???

Guyz,LTTE Have launched some kind of offensive (“Counter Attack” that everyone is waiting for ?) to the forward columns of 57 this morning. According to Defense.lk this happed south to the Mallavi and west to the Tank that SLDF captured yesterday. But the this effort has been retaliated by SLDF successfully killing number of LTTE cadres.

The most important thing is this is the first offensive that LLTE have launched after series of defeats. In the 90’s these initial counter waves from LTTE causes much damage to SLDF. As an example the first counter attack that LTTE launched against operation Jayasikurui in 1997 causes arnd 200 SLDF casualties (I mean deaths here). This was led by Karuna.

So now anyone can see the deference between now and then…… So its gonna be over sooner or later. I think the best option that ltte has is unconditional surrender to SLDF which would at least saves some young life to country.

i get the feeling that tigers might call off their name-sake ceasefire nonsense blaming the govt.

yesterday's attempt by sea tigers was a VERY significant one. luckily it was foiled by TIMELY action by the SLN.

today's confrontation is not likely to be a "counter attack" by tigers although SLA has classified it as such. it is more likely to be a SLA initiated strike in their attempt to go eastward.

SLDFs must be wary of force multipliers (FMs) used by tigers at this stage. tigers are trapped into a compact area than b4 and they will depend HEAVILY on FMs to face the SLA which is manytimes stronger.

i agree with you in this and the SLA moved their newly purchased radar such as Fire finder to the FDLs ...

But its not made by US ..recently India bought same kind of Radars from US and its quite expensive... but the Srilanka bought them from a Asian country its have same capabilities of the US Fire finders and Less expensive ..

It shows the Firing position in 5 seconds if any firing occurred and directly attached arti will guid to fire on the enemy location

In year 2000, AF had limited number of UAV controlling stations. Those stations had some limitations that only one airborne UAV can be controlled at a time. The other limitation was that the flying speed of the UAVs. They are flying at considerably lower speeds, so it can take some time to reach to a given location.

However, there were lot of gaps in the space of communication between AF and NAVI. Not sure whether they were patched during recent years.

With the death of Jonas Savimbi, the leader of UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) in 2002 a watershed was reached in the course of the 28 year old civil war in Angola. Six weeks following Savimbi's death, a ceasefire between UNITA and the MPLA was signed, but Angola remains deeply divided politically between MPLA and UNITA supporters.

The course of the war and the end had many similarities to the conflict in Sri Lanka. UNITA had the support of the regional super-power then lost it, were extremely violent, was lead by a god-like charismatic leader, fueled and used ethnic hatred, splintered up under duress etc.

I think we have a lot to learn not only on how to end the war in Sri Lanka but also on what to do after. I think this would be a great discussion to start!

There is going to be massive counter attack by LTTE after SAARC conference according to some insiders.]

I just watched this video, and its a real commedy battle. I wish all the LTTE terrorists would fight like this. Then it would be so easy for the SLA to take care of'em. e.g. one tera throws a granade and ducks down the others around him are standing and jumping around. one tera walks in front of after he ducks. it realy shows the proffesional fighting skills of the LTTE.(I am laughing from the rear now)

DW,As far as I know there were two such SLAF operation rooms one at Anu and Palali. An army officer was always present in these ops rooms. And during Operations some army officers are attached to UAV squadron (most probably they are from artillery Reg).

I lost the respect for Tamilnet which has just become another .lk news site who does not tell their own casualties and debacles. What folks get distorted news from the battle fields. One thing is for sure that SLA is gaining momentum at this juncture.

DW-----------------------------------The majority assets of the UAV squadron was subsequently moved to Anuradhapura. Now, an SLAF officer is permanently station with the army Op Com.-----------------------------------Thank you very much for the update.

Kuttu

Mate it is not the only target available for LTTE, there are lot of others if and only if they are capable of attacking them successfully. The million dollar question is whether the LTTE can do it successfully. This time The SLAF is prepared for any challenges.